Who are you, Lloyd Freeman?
by Nave Ninja
Summary: A short story that takes place between the tenth and eleventh chapters of The Legend of the Wandering Pair from Vault 101. Lloyd awakens in the night after a horribly vivid nightmare, and ponders his own place in the wider world around him and what it truly means to him to have Amata by his side.


_"Revelation 21:6: I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely."_

_"Congratulations young man! I don't have to tell you how special this day is, do I?"_

_"Your mother? She... she was beautiful. But beyond beauty you've seen... there's just only so much those old photographs can show."_

_"There you are. Been waitin' a long time for this…"_

_"Just because her father didn't like me didn't stop me from loving my wife and having three children. I married her because I loved her and felt that it was right, and to hell with whomever else thought not, father-in-law included. I wasn't about to let his disapproval get in my way."_

_"You're telling me. He's going to try to keep me locked up for a while. I figure that if I play along, he'll go easier on me. As much as I hate to admit, the harder I fight him, the worse he'll become. He's just such a control freak, I can't stand it!"_

_"Look, I don't know what you're up to and I don't wanna know. Just, just clear outta here and I'll pretend I never saw you."_

_"I've had enough of you and your traitorous father not calling me by my official title. You will refer to me as the Overseer, protector and savior of all those in Vault 101!"_

_"You're not a murderer. I know you aren't..."_

_"Well whoo-eee! Lookit you two. Now I ain't seen one o' those vault jumpsuits in, wow, a long time! Pretty darn good condition, too."_

_"Friendly and well-mannered? I think we're gonna get along just fine. You treat my people fine, don't make any trouble, and you're both welcome to stay as long as you like."_

_"Wait… you're not gonna hit me? Berate me? Not even yell at me a little bit?"_

_"My, my. Just when I had all but given up hope. My dear boy, I am very happy to make your acquaintance. I... am Mister Burke."_

"_I invoke the wrath of Atom upon you!" Cromwell cried. "May your bones melt, your skin burn and your ashes be scattered and forgotten! You are desecrating a holy relic! You are—"_

_"Don't get too comfortable around them because they're gonna get fuckin' wasted out there in the real world. They don't know a goddamn thing about life out here! Not a goddamned thing! They've been fed good meals all their life, they've drank clean water all their life! They ain't fought to live like we all have! They think they're so much better than us, don't they? That we'd just fall apart if they didn't come at the right time and be in the right place, so they'll take all the credit. They look down on us like we're just fuckin' bugs compared to them!"_

_"Well it's a shame we didn't meet before you became town heroes!"_

_"You can stop playing the noble soul when we're alone, Lloyd... and I think I'd be more comfortable with you instead of not."_

_"Her daddy wants her back home. He brought me out of retirement to find you. Didn't take me long to find you two, with that commotion you made in Megaton."_

_"Oh, yer daddy passed through here, all right. Here and gone. Got what he came for and left. I'm assumin' ye'll do the same, correct? Just like when you were a little baby boy, crying yer eyes out in the upper floors of this very building."_

_"You want Jericho, kid. He's been all over the ruins in his life, and you better believe that he can take you there. Hell of a shot too. Good luck."_

_"What the fuck are you getting at, kid? So what if I get drunk and hate this oversized, rusted shithole. It's a living. I don't need smart-assed little kids telling me to clean my act up."_

_"I said shut the fuck up, local. Your voice annoys me."_

_"Um, Lloyd? Are we so sure he won't bite our necks out too?"_

_"There's a lot in the wasteland you two still don't know about. I've seen a lot in my days as a Regulator. I've seen the worst out there, and Talon Company and Littlehorn & Associates are two of the worst. Littlehorn is a contract killing company that hires mercenaries, bounty hunters and cutthroats to kill people they consider 'good.' The killers then collect the ear of the victim and sell it to Daniel Littlehorn, a most troubling and elusive man."  
"We're not vigilantes, Lloyd. At least, that's not why we came out here."_

_"You… you haven't shot me yet. That's… different…"_

_"The name's Sarah Lyons, Sentinel of the Brotherhood of Steel and squad commander of the Lyons' Pride. We do our best to keep the ruins clean of super mutants, but that gets a little bit difficult when civilians are involved, doesn't it?"_

_"It's good to talk things over with other people, Lloyd. Keeps you from going crazy."_

_"Now, I know what you're thinking. The looks on your faces say it all. You're wondering who the heck this guy is and why you should care. Well... prepare to be enlightened. I am Three Dog, jockey of disks and teller of truths, master of the finest radio station to ever grace the wastes, Galaxy News Radio."_

_"Well, here you are in our nation's capital, the once-great Mall, taking in the sights. You're not a rampaging super mutant, not a settling ghoul, not a raping raider and you're not from Talon Company, so you're a tourist."_

_"Look kid, uh... your buddy, he was up in The Ninth Circle, Azrukhal's joint, and he got a little drunk... and thought he could pick a fight with the bouncer, Charon. Lotta smoothskins have made the same mistake. Just... you know, thought you should know what happened."_

_"You see, I hold his contract, which makes him ultimately loyal to me, which makes me his employer. He will do what I ask, when I ask, all without question. The most convenient kind of loyal."_

_"That's not the way I do things, kid. Do you have any idea what it could do to my reputation if word got around that Reilly of Reilly's Rangers was laid up in a hospital bed?"_

_"Do allow me to introduce myself, good sir. I am Wadsworth, a most distinguished and accomplished Mr. Handy unit."_

_You see that? Two shots kid, two shots!"_

_"Hmm... Well, you three made it all the way up here alive... Okay, I'm impressed. Reilly must have sent the right people for the job, as usual. Hey, is she okay?" _

_"You think that's gonna get us to back away from the price on your heads? No, that's not going to happen. I'm going to stab you with my knife, and you'll bleed all kinds of nice. Then, you'll die and I'll get paid. Now, if you'd like, you can pick a point where you'd like to die. It'd make this a lot easier."_

_"Where you will travel, I shall follow, for good or for ill. From the dangers of the wasteland, I will to the best of my ability protect you and your allies. You, Lloyd Freeman, have destroyed my contract and because of it, I make my own contract, one without writing, only the words of my own solemn oath. You have my shotgun, Lloyd Freeman."_

_"Two shots. Right in that fuckin' thing's neck. Two shots, I got."_

_"That was beautiful! Best damn show I've ever done! I'm getting word from the guys downstairs that more people tuned in than ever before! Hahaha!"_

_"Well, originally, it was ordained that you were born into it. I was, back out west in the Core Region. But, back in 2254, we were sent east to the Capital Wasteland. Once here, Elder Lyons decided to put down permanent roots, and here we've remained."_

_"Yeah? Well, let me guess. She's not expecting you, but since you were on the radio with that sap story, you think you can just walk right in and talk to her because you think it's important."_

_"Look, this is a restricted area. I'm tired of telling you people... I... It's you. My heavens, you look so much like him..."_

_"Lloyd…"_

_"Amata…"_

_"I love you."_

Lloyd awoke very suddenly, sitting up in the small bed. Sweat covered his body. Wet strands of hair clung to his forehead. His fingers dug into the spring mattress. His bright green eyes were wide and he breathed very heavily. For a moment, he wasn't sure where he was. Then, it all came back to him: a small room in the basement of Project Purity in the Jefferson Memorial. It was dim, lit only by a kerosene lamp, and various bits of clutter were scattered about it. As well as all of Lloyd's clothing, armor and weapons, tossed carelessly aside.

The bed wasn't very comfortable. No, that wasn't it. The bed was fine. It was the fact that it was a one-person bed and that there were two people in it. Then, the reason why there were two people in the bed came back to him. He couldn't help but smile. Amata's head rolled over and her eyes slowly opened. He felt her squeeze his shoulder gently. "Lloyd?" she spoke rather groggily. She was never one to wake up easily. "Lloyd?" she asked again, a little more clearly this time.

His breathing slowed to a normal rate. His muscles were no longer tense, and his fingers released the bedding. "Yeah," he replied.

"Are you alright?" She sat up behind him. Her hand remained on his shoulder, her thumb gently rubbing his skin.

"Yeah…" he whispered, and then repeated a little louder, "Yeah." He looked back at her. "It was just a dream."

"Oh… Would you like to tell me about it?" she asked.

"It… wasn't very interesting."

"Dreams always are to the party interested," she replied, a smile gracing her pretty face.

His eyes averted from her for a moment. "It was… I don't know. I just saw everything we've done since we came out here. The people, the places, the things, the moments… I don't know, it just all flashed before my eyes. But it was more than that."

"What do you mean?"

"I remember seeing… a birthday party I had, a long time ago. Then… the day we took the G.O.A.T., remember?" She nodded. "Then the day we escaped… left, I mean."

"We escaped," she asserted. After a moment, he nodded in agreement.

"Then… our wasteland life kind of just streamed before my mind. It's fuzzy now, I can't remember every bit of it… but I saw people, faces. I mean the people we've met: Three Dog and Uncle Leo and Billy Creel, everybody, really. That bounty hunter the Overse—your father, rather, sent after us. Talon Company, Burke, Reilly, Charon… everyone."

Amata looked down. She wasn't sure what to say. "Do you know why?"

He shook his head. "No. Not really. It was sort of like I was watching our lives from an outside perspective… a retrospective, you know?"

All was silent for a moment. Amata bit her lip. She wanted to talk about the vault, but she wasn't sure if he wanted to. She decided to ask anyway. "How do you think things are going in the vault?"

Their eyes met again and Lloyd shook his head. "I don't know. But… I imagine that things probably calmed down in our wake. Your father has most likely regained control."

She nodded. "I think… seeing as I'm not there, things are probably tipped more towards his side."

"Since you're not there, he has a better advantage? What would you have done, if you hadn't come with me?" Lloyd asked.

Amata shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't thought a lot about it. I might have started some kind of rebellion against the Overseer. I know the youths of the vault would listen to me a lot more. They trust me more. And… I know that I wouldn't have stood for the Overseer and his ways after what I saw the day we escaped."

Lloyd waited a moment before asking, "Do you think it would have been better if you had stayed?"

She spoke very seriously. "I don't regret my choice, Lloyd. We've gone over this before."

"That's not what I asked," he countered. "What I asked was: do you think it would have been better if you had stayed in the vault? Not just for me, not just for you, but for everyone else inside the vault?"

She thought for a few seconds. "It wouldn't have been better for us, Lloyd. I can't say about other people." She took his hand and kissed it, before resting her head on his shoulder. "The only thing I know for sure is that we have each other." For a few moments, they were silent as they simply enjoyed each other's company. Over the course of the week they had been above ground, their love and their lives had been tested multiple times. Together, they had overcome obstacles that would surely have conquered others. For a short while, they just stared into each other's eyes. Finally, Lloyd spoke.

"Yeah, you're right. It won't do to dwell on the past and what might have been." He reached over and gently took her chin in his hand to pull her forward and kiss her. "We should only think about now, and the future."

"Project Purity?" she replied. The response surprised Lloyd.

"Care to clarify?" he asked, using his fingers to brush a few loose strands of hair behind her ear that were obscuring his view of her face.

She smiled. "This place was your father's life before you came along. He left the vault to resume work on it; that much we know. When we find him, find James… what then?"

"He'll have some things to answer for." Lloyd paused to look around the room, which had belonged to his father. "It's odd… when I think about it, I don't think I'm angry with him anymore. I know why he left the vault, and now that I'm here, in this building… I really do know everything about what he did. It'll be nice to hear his side of things, sure, but now… there's only one reason I want to track him down."

She knew why as well. "The healing."

He nodded. "He knows what it is and why I have it. I just know he does. At least, I hope he does. I really do."

She reached over and rubbed the center of his back, searching with the tips of her fingers for the faintest hint of a scar. There was none. She remembered when he emerged from the dust of the collapse of the Washington Monument, with a shard of rebar impaled clear through him. With her help, they had gotten it out.

"You should have died…" she said, barely loud enough for him to hear.

"What?"

His response startled her out of her fascination with his perfect health. "I mean, the metal spike in your chest… anyone else would have died. God knows what organs or bones wear hurt by it. But you… you're fine."

"I hope you're not displeased by this," he smiled.

"No! No, I mean… it's just amazing. The scope of your healing factor allowed for the perfect rejuvenation of the area… Lloyd, there's never been anything like this in all of existence. In all of human history, there's never been anyone like… you."

His smile widened. "I'll take that as a compliment."

She didn't share in his merriment. "Lloyd, I'm serious! If your father… I don't know, was responsible for this… like we think… then he's made the biggest medical breakthrough of all time."

Lloyd blinked a few times. "Well… you're right." He thought for a moment. "But we don't know that my father made me like this, do we?"

"But-" she was interrupted by him holding up his hand as he continued speaking.

"Amata, I admit, I don't know a whole lot of ways that could've resulted in this healing, but we don't know that my father is responsible. Not yet. We'll only know if we ever actually find him."

She sat back, quiet. The moment was growing a little awkward.

"We'll find him, Lloyd." Amata reached over and picked up a small collection of holotapes and for her Pip-Boy, which she had taken off. "Listen to this," she said as she inserted and played the first tape. James' all-too familiar voice was heard as Amata help the Pip-Boy up so they could both hear the recorded words of Lloyd's father.

"_Even in Vault 101, my work on Project Purity never really stopped. Soon after we arrived, my nightly routine included sneaking into the restricted areas. Searching for, I don't know, whatever I could find. It was a Vault-Tec facility after all. The place was built with some of the most advanced technology this country had ever developed. Those excursions never turned up anything particularly useful. So one night, after half a bottle of scotch, I broke into the Overseer's office. It was easy enough to hack his console, gain access to the restricted files. Most of it was garbage: propaganda, spy reports, just plain rambling bullshit, really. But there was one thing, one name that stood out amongst all the others... Dr. Stanislaus Braun. I knew of Braun's work, of course. He was a celebrity in his day: Vault-Tec's sorcerer-scientist, leaving his peers in awe of his technological wizardry. But it was in Vault 101 that night in the Overseer's office, that I first learned of Braun's involvement in Vault-Tec's social preservation program, and his work on something called G.E.C.K.; the Garden of Eden Creation Kit."_

Lloyd listened intently. "Seems like every day I'm out here I learn something new about my father. Now I know he broke into restricted vault areas."

"Never would have guessed it…" Amata replied. "I also didn't know how much of a drinker your father was." She reached over and picked up a half-empty bottle of scotch. "I'm pretty sure this is your father's."

Lloyd took it from her and took a small swig, much to her surprise and mild disapproval. It lasted only a moment, however, as Lloyd spit it out. "Well, clearly," he said, wiping his hand across his mouth. "We don't share that taste. That or this is spoiled by something."

Amata smiled. She noticed a spot of liquid that he missed, and used her thumb to wipe it off of his chin. She then took a moment to feel his chin further. "You're growing a bit of a beard," she told him, lightly scratching the small hairs on his chin.

"I am?" He rubbed his chin. Sure enough, he was. Small hairs covered his chin and upper lip. "Now that I think about it, I haven't been able to shave ever since we left the vault."

"I like it," she said, feeling his chin. "I guess that's another thing you share with your dad, isn't it?" The statement was a little more true than originally intended. While she hadn't thought about it initially, Dr. Li was right: Lloyd's features undoubtedly resembled his father's.

"I suppose it is." He looked back at her Pip-Boy. "Play the next one, please," he asked her. She quickly complied.

"_To be honest, the G.E.C.K. sounded like pure fantasy, even for someone of Braun's capabilities. It was nothing short of a miracle. A terra-forming module, capable of producing life from complete lifelessness. But not only was this thing a reality, it was actually distributed to several vaults to be used after an atomic war. Vault 101 was, sadly, not on that list. I did some digging and discovered Braun's name on the reservation list for a Vault 112. I'm no slouch, but this man, he could have easily succeeded where I failed. Does his collected knowledge remain within the halls of Vault 112? Journals, holotapes, computer records, maybe even experiments? If I could gain access to just a fraction of Braun's genius, Project Purity would become a reality."_

Amata looked over at him when the tape was finished. "What do you think, Lloyd?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I've never heard of any of these things, especially a G.E.C.K., If dad thinks Braun is legitimate, then he probably is. Play the next tape," he urged. Amata inserted the final holotape in.

"_I'm off to Vault 112 to search for anything of Braun's that might help me get this purifier up and running. All I know is that it is west of some place called "Evergreen Mills," and it's well hidden in some sort of garage. But I'll find it, I have to. It's so close, but that's the story of Project Purity, isn't it? An eternity of "almost there's". Let's see if Braun has the missing puzzle piece."_

"So… Vault 112, west of Evergreen Mills. Wonder if Jericho's ever been out that way," Lloyd said. "Either way, we'll find it."

"And James," Amata reminded.

He nodded. "We'll get ready to leave in the morning. What time is it?" he asked her. She checked her Pip-Boy.

"About eleven," she answered. She set her Pip-Boy aside and fell back into the bed. "Let's just get some sleep, Lloyd."

He didn't answer verbally, only nodding in silence. She waited for him to lean back, but he didn't. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He was very still, sitting up in the bed and breathing slowly.

"Lloyd?"

"Just thinking," he responded. "About the dream."

"You said it was just memories, right? Of us out here in the Capital Wasteland?"

"Yeah. I was just thinking about it. There was…" He looked back at her, pausing briefly. He sighed. "Never mind, let's just get some sleep. We'll leave in the morning."

Amata was unsure of what to make of his last few sentences, but she decided not to press him about it. Right now, she was just content to have him be as calm and collected as possible and lying beside her.

Lloyd leaned back to lie next to her again. They quickly got comfortable, given the small confines of the bed. He pulled the covers up over the both of them.

Sleep did not claim him, however. He was awake and listened as Amata's pattern of breathing indicated that she was asleep once more. Lloyd smiled as he contemplated how truly fortunate he was to have her with him, even though he had lied to her not long ago. While it was true that he had seen their time in the wasteland, he had also seen something much worse immediately after.

It was a dark and terrifying parallel to his current life.

On the day they would have left the vault, an enraged Lloyd had killed the Overseer. An emotionally distraught Amata refused to come with him. He left the vault alone. Not knowing what else to do or where else to turn, he wandered into Megaton, where he met Mr. Burke. Burke sensed the emotional turmoil within Lloyd and used it to his advantage. He convinced Lloyd to set off the bomb, in exchange for as many caps and help in finding his father he would ever need.

Lloyd took him up on the offer. With a bonus from Burke, he hired Jericho to guide him to Tenpenny Tower, where the bomb would be set off. From that spire of corrupted civilization, he personally pressed the button, condemning the population of Megaton to their ultimate deaths. Burke handed him information he had personally stolen off of Moriarty's terminal, which pointed Lloyd in the right direction.

Lloyd travelled to the D.C. ruins, where he and Jericho killed Uncle Leo when they saw the super mutant approaching. Both of them ran from the super mutant behemoth and the gargantuan when they approached, leaving the Brotherhood of Steel to fend for themselves. Lyons' Pride fell that day, and the gargantuan personally smashed half of the Galaxy News Radio building, with Three Dog inside it.

With no other options, Lloyd and Jericho left the ruins. Lloyd realized he was doomed to never find his father, and with Jericho, began to wander the wastes. As they travelled, their conduct became more and more like that of a raider's. Lloyd soon lost himself to the craze, and killed Jericho in order to join a larger group of raiders, as Jericho was too old to guarantee them a spot in the gang. He shot Jericho in the back of the head after fooling him into turning around. To impress them, Lloyd decapitated and dismembered the corpse with a lawnmower blade.

His initiation was that he was pitted against four other prospective raiders and told to fight to the death with only their bare fists. Lloyd was ferocious, tearing into the others, choking one and smashing another's head against a rock.

Soon, Lloyd was just another raider. He dropped his true name and lost all sense of his former identity. The dark, twisted underbelly of the Capital Wasteland had claimed Lloyd Freeman entirely.

A group of people in black and red power armor found Lloyd's raider party and slaughtered them all. As they stood over Lloyd's dead body, he could hear their voices as he faded into oblivion.

"Who's this guy? He doesn't look like a raider."

"It doesn't matter. He's just another dead local."

They left him there, dead and staring up at the sky with wide eyes and a bullet in his brain.

Then Lloyd Freeman, the real Lloyd Freeman, had woken up.

And so now, as Lloyd laid there, unable to sleep, comparing the events of his life to the ones of his dream counterpart and seeing the amazing comparison they made, he thought about everything that made him who he was and defined his personality; his choices, his consequences, his feelings. Having Amata with him.

The wasteland was changing him. It was forcing him to face new problems, people and sights, all which brought about a multitude of conflicting emotions. Was he going to live in the wasteland forever? He had accepted that as a possibility, and now he felt almost accustomed to the idea. Was this adaptation to a new environment, or simple acceptance of what seemed inevitable? After he had found his father, what life would he forge for himself out here, and who would he become? Who would Amata become? What would their relationship become, out here in the wastes?

Her recent words flashed in his mind.

"_In all of human history, there's never been anyone like… you."_

Lloyd whispered, loud enough for only him to hear, "Who are you, Lloyd Freeman?"

He wasn't sure he knew anymore. But he knew he'd find out.


End file.
